In the production of leaded glass and stained glass objects, one conventional technique of securing the pieces of flat glass, generally of different colors and/or textures, in contiguous relationship, is to apply to the edge of each flat glass segment, a metal foil strip, generally a copper foil strip which is adhesive-backed and is pressed with its adhesive backing against the edge of the flat glass article so that margins of the strip project on opposite sides of the edge and are then pressed on to the broad surfaces of the glass article adjoining the edge.
The final strip is generally extracted from a roll and may have a masking strip or protective strip adhered to the adhesive and which must be removed before the adhesive backing is applied to the glass article.
After the foil has been smoothed onto the edge of the flat glass article and the margins have been flattened against the broad surfaces of the article adjoining the edge, the foil forms, in effect, a channel embracing the edge portion of the glass article and secured thereto by the adhesive layer.
When the foil-sheathed edge of one glass section is placed adjacent the foil-sheathed edge of another glass section, after the application of an appropriate flux, solder can be deposited on the foil channels to ultimately cut the margins and be drawn by capillarity between the foils so that a solder-coated channel is thereby formed. The latter retains the glass sections in place in the finished "leaded" glass article.
In my copending application Ser. No. 670,531, filed Nov. 13, 1984, I have described a device for stripping the paper-masking layer from the pressure-sensitive adhesive of the foil and "rolling" the foil onto the edge of the glass article so that the margins of the foil strip will project beyond the edge and can be then bent over the broad faces of the glass article. In earlier manual techniques and with the use of this device, the bending of the foil margin was effected by the fingers in a stripwise manner which sometimes caused wrinkling, folding or crimping of the foil, exposed the worker to sharp edges and caused contamination of the foil by natural body oils and the like.